AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): SINNERY — “BELOW THE SUMMIT”

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Sep 282023
 

Last year we opened the floodgates on a great volume of words when we premiered and reviewed a new album named Black Bile by the Israeli band Sinnery. We were delivering a full stream of the album, so what was the point of all those words?

The point was to try to wake people up and get them to look past the simple genre descriptions of “thrash” or “death/thrash” that seemed to follow the band around like lost dogs. The point was that Sinnery‘s music is much more multi-faceted and thus much more interesting than the labels might suggest — and also even more riotously exhilarating.

Black Bile was so damned good that we’re very damned fortunate Sinnery have quickly followed it up, releasing three singles this year and now a new EP named Below the Summit that includes those, plus two more tracks. Once again, we’ve got a full stream for you, and once again a torrent of words. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: EFRAAH ENHSIKAAH, ERSHETU, GRAVE GNOSIS, JZOVCE, SACRIS RITUS VERMES

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Sep 242023
 

I obviously didn’t prepare a Seen and Heard roundup yesterday, which is usually the way I spend Saturday mornings. Just too many other interferences, both personal and job-related, so I checked out.

Today has its own interferences in store for me, some eagerly anticipated and others more mentally grinding. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of missing another appointment with our visitors, so I got an early start on the day and managed to pull together the following recommendations, presented in alphabetical order by band name.

EFRAAH ENHSIKAAH (France?)

As I was beginning to make choices for this column I received an alert about a new starkweather SubStack entry (here). Although I didn’t have much time to spare, I did quickly read through the new recommendations there. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): DUNGEON — “INTO THE RUINS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Sep 212023
 

For those of you who might be experiencing the music of the band Dungeon for the first time today, don’t misunderstand their name: They don’t play dungeon synth or creeping and rotten old school death metal. In fact, you’ll soon discover that they’re somewhere over on the opposite end of a spectrum that might include those other genres.

But surely many of you already know that, because Dungeon (whose members are divided between the UK and Germany) have already made their searing mark through three previous releases whose titles very openly brandish the kind of music they’ve been making: the Unholy Speed Attack demo in 2015, the English Hell demo in 2016, and the Purifying Fire EP in 2018.

Fans have waited five years for Dungeon‘s next audio attack, and today you’ll hear it through our full stream of a new EP named Into the Ruins that’s set for release tomorrow by Dying Victims Productions. Those five years, it turns out, have done nothing to quench the hellfire that burns in their songs. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HURONIAN — “BEYOND FROZEN HEIGHTS”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  1 Response »
Sep 132023
 

The birth of the Italian band Huronian in 2020 was one of the silver linings to the lethal black clouds with which the covid pandemic was then shrouding the world.

Word of their existence spread through a self-titled EP released that year, and then spread further through a very impressive 2021 debut album, As Cold as a Stranger Sunset.

Now Huronian are returning with a new five-track EP. Entitled Beyond Frozen Heights, it’s set for release on September 15th by Gruesome Records, and today we’re bringing you an advance listen to the whole record. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): AABODE — “MOIST”

 Album Reviews, Premieres, SHORT BUT SWEET  4 Responses »
Sep 122023
 

In this article we present a full stream of the debut EP by the two-person band Aabode from the French town of Nancy. The EP’s name is Moist, and it’s set for release on September 15th by Godz Ov War Productions. The label introduces it, at a high level, with these words:

Aabode is a dissonant, haunting twisted mixture of industrial beats and death metal riffing. Low-tuned, blackened, oppressive death metal riffing provided by Aabstracter is combined with ambient noise and glitched 808’s drum patterns. Assymetric track composition is overhanged by Abyssal‘s harsh vocals.

But like most views from a high level, that summary, while useful, omits the details. So let’s move into the EP at ground level, where the riotous dangers it poses to sanity are more apparent. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: SÜHNOPFER, TAUBRA, SLIDHR, BIAŁYWILK, FLUISTERAARS, RAAT

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Sep 032023
 

Here in the U.S. we’re in the middle of a holiday that sprawls over the weekend and through Monday. Because of the nature of the celebration (Labor Day), not working is an even more central part of the holiday than it is for others. The event is also generally regarded here as marking “the end of the summer” (for reasons that have nothing to do with weather forecasting).

Probably more so on this holiday weekend than any other, I feel the urge to fuck off. Although I did sleep long and late overnight, you can see that the old NCS tradition of observing no weekends or holidays still won out today, as it will tomorrow (two Monday posts are already scheduled, and there might be a third).

The first three selections below were already on my list of things to check out in preparation for this column, but links to all three also arrived in one fell swoop yesterday from my internet friend Miloš, which eased the always-difficult process of choosing.

After those, I’ve gone off in other directions. The combined volume of the music here should give you lots of ways to fill your holiday time. If there’s one word I think applies equally to all of it, that word is “breathtaking”. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): HEADS FOR THE DEAD — “IN THE ABSENCE OF FAITH”

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Aug 282023
 

We are very happy once again to premiere music by Heads for the Dead. It’s the kind of happiness people feel when they wake up from supernatural nightmares and realize the monsters weren’t really eating your guts after all, or those who get thrills from the chills of horror movies in which the undead bare their rotten teeth and demons pierce the veil between worlds.

Horror in many forms is the bread and butter of this multinational death metal band, whose discography has swollen since 2018 to encompass an EP and three albums, and now there’s another EP shambling toward us, with a due date of September 1st via the venerable Pulverised Records.

As signified by its title — In the Absence of Faith — all the lyrics in these five tracks were inspired by horror-related movies “that deal with the concept of losing belief or getting challenged in extreme situations”. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD ON A SATURDAY: GREAT FALLS, THE KEENING, DIKASTERION, COPROLITH

 Album Reviews, Exceptions to the Rule, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  3 Responses »
Aug 192023
 

Well, no unforeseeable calamities befell me or our indomitable site in the last 24 hours, and so I’ve probably set a record for us today with the fourth roundup of new music in a row. If you include tomorrow’s Shades of Black column (barring a calamity), that will be five in a row.

The incredible thing is that even with so many daily installments, one after the other, there’s still a big pile of worthy new metal I haven’t managed to feature, and in that respect there’s nothing particularly unusual about the last week. Every week, the flood just keeps surging.

GREAT FALLS (U.S.)

I fibbed a little. Not everything in today’s collection surfaced during the last week. These first two songs, “Trap Feeding” and “Old Words Worn Thin“, are a tad older than that. They’re both from a new album by this devastating Seattle crew that will be out on September 15th through Neurot Recordings. Continue reading »

SEEN AND HEARD: THE AMENTA, HARM’S WAY, VIOLENT LIFE VIOLENT DEATH, NO DIVINITY, GRUZJA, INTO THE DEEP, INCANTATION

 Album Reviews, Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 172023
 

Oh look! Another mid-week roundup of new music, and it’s even more voluminous than the one I managed yesterday.

To give you a bit of a roadmap to what’s ahead, I’m starting with a perennial NCS favorite from Australia, then moving into an absolutely devastating block of U.S. metallic hardcore, then veering off in all sorts of other different directions.

THE AMENTA (Australia)

The Amenta decided to record a bunch of cover songs by a very eclectic group of bands, ranging from the black metal of Nazxul and Lord Kaos to Alice In Chains, Diamanda Galas, Killing Joke, Wolf Eyes, Halo, and… wait for it… My Dying Bride.

As if the prospect of these covers wouldn’t be titillating enough on their own to pique our interest (because we know a band like The Amenta aren’t going to play it straight with any of those songs), the 40-minute “EP” that includes the covers also presents a new original song, which is the subject of a video that debuted yesterday. Continue reading »

SHADES OF BLACK: ARIDUS, MAGNITUDO, COME HORRID SIGIL, NEKROFILTH, RUNESPELL

 Album Reviews, SHADES OF BLACK, SHORT BUT SWEET  No Responses »
Aug 132023
 

Sorry for whining about my damn cold yesterday. I did feel better as the day rolled on, good enough to spend a lot of time listening to music. This morning was better still, so I kept at it. Maybe all the sleep has helped.

Feeling hopeful that maybe this nasty bug is finally on the run, maybe I’ve also bitten off more than I can chew for today’s selections. There’s a lot here, and some of it is a bit outside the usual black metal boundaries, but to be fair, those boundaries have always been fluid, hence the name of this column.

ARIDUS (U.S.)

This first album isn’t outside the usual boundaries, but it’s an unusual pick for a different reason: Rather than a forthcoming record or one that was very recently released, it’s been out since early May (on the Eisenwald label). Like so many other albums, I had it on a long list of things to check out and never found time to get to it. But a friend happened to remind me of it yesterday. Continue reading »

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